Post Office (former)

The 30th Street Post Office was renovated into a modern office building by Brandywine Realty Trust.  Bohlin Cywinski Jackson designed the renovation to include restoration of the original bronze windows and other details.  The project is LEED Gold certified adapts the 1930s-era mail facility into a modern and energy efficient development.

Planning Strategy

This 926,000 square foot adaptive reuse project transformed a five-story, 1930s-era USPS mail distribution facility into a modern office building that includes a cafeteria, fitness center and daycare facility. The centerpiece of the LEED Gold renovation is a four-story light well that forms a long, narrow atrium in the center of the city block-sized industrial floor plate. Bringing daylight deep into the building, the atrium humanizes the building's scale and is the focus of the office spaces created from the former mail sorting floors. The project reversed 75 years of exterior deterioration, including the use of innovative technologies to restore original bronze windows to both thermal and blast-security criteria without removing historic material. Interior work centered on the original public post office gallery, restoring its finishes while recreating an energy efficient version of its extraordinary 1930s indirect lighting effects.

Program

As the centerpiece of an urban revitalization effort that also includes office and mixed use development and the 24 acre Penn Park, the 30th Street Post Office building invigorates its neighborhood with the addition of five thousand office workers to one of the country's most active transportation, residential, and office hubs.

Post Office (former)

Post Office (former)

Gross Area (sq. ft.): 926,000
Phase: Completed
Year Built: 2010
Floors: 5
Architect: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson